


Glimmer Shimmer

by LadyYueh



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bobby Deals With Idjits, Castiel will glitter your shit up, Dean Winchester is a glittery princess, M/M, Sam Winchester is oblivious, season 5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-14
Updated: 2012-01-14
Packaged: 2017-10-29 12:10:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/319753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyYueh/pseuds/LadyYueh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam gets a clue and eventually solves the mystery.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Glimmer Shimmer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [baka_sensei](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=baka_sensei).



> For a [deancastiel](deancastiel.livejournal.com) fic exchange.

If asked, Sam could tell you when it started for him. He should have gotten it long before, he knows, but he blames his inattentiveness on the apocalypse.

It was nothing big and Castiel wasn’t even in the room. In retrospect, Sam thought that he should have caught a big honking clue whenever Dean and Castiel went into one of their championship staring sessions of intensity and violated each other’s personal space in increasingly larger degrees.

But, no. It was a regular afternoon, in a town Sam can’t even remember the name of, on a hunt for a werewolf. Sam was on research when Dean came in. He was on edge as usual, but with energy in his stride that caught Sam’s attention.

“What’s up?” Sam asked.

Dean grunted. “Body’s a mauled mess. Cas came around for a newsflash: God’s still not using his visitation rights and he’s dodging alimony payments, the bastard.”

Sam glared, mostly out of habit. There was a time it would have been heartfelt ‘don’t talk about the Almighty that way, Dean, he’ll smite your ass,’ but he wasn’t particularly enamored of Jehovah’s absenteeism himself when Armageddon was upon the world.

At least Dean’s antsy qualities were explained. He always got that way after he’d had an encounter with that particular angel of the Lord.

And it was then that he saw it.

Dean had thrown himself into a creaky motel chair across from Sam and leaned back to stare at the ceiling, which had become the recipient of his facial expressions and thoughts. The position gave Sam the opportunity to see something like _glitter_ smeared along Dean’s cheek. Well, it was more like a fine dusting of shimmer which he knew because Jessica had explained to him, a lifetime ago, that there was a big difference between the two. Shimmer was classy and subtle and glitter was usually for teenaged girls and older women that tried too hard to act young.

Sometimes, Sam could see where Dean got off calling him ‘Princess’ because, seriously? Having a mental digression about shimmer and glitter? He wasn’t some kind of up in arms conservative ranting about “proper” gender roles, but he really had no interest in makeup. Even with Jess, he’d liked her best right after the shower—clean and delicious smelling, warm and slightly damp.

“Hey! Earth to Sam!”

Sam snapped out of his wistful memories and glared halfheartedly. “What?”

“Got anything?” Dean asked as he enunciated slowly with his ‘speaking to idiots’ tone.

For that Sam decided to _forget_ to mention that Dean had been left with a girly memento from an encounter he’d had between the coroner’s office and God talk with Castiel.

\----

Once had been an amusing happenstance, but twice made Sam question Dean’s choice in women. Surely that much makeup should not be smearing over someone else unless they were caking it on and if they were there should be more of it elsewhere. It was really something Sam didn’t want to think about.

This time Dean’s neck was flashing with rainbow iridescence.

It was _weird_.

“What were you up to?” Sam asked casually, with an arched eyebrow that suggested he knew just what his brother had been doing.

Dean didn’t get it apparently and frowned. That was even more worrying.

“I was getting us coffee.” Dean held up the two cups in his hands as proof.

Sam shook his head and walked closer.

Dean quirked an eyebrow. “Sam?” he asked warily like he was worried for Sam’s state of mind.

Sam reached a hand out and wiped at the streak, felt the fine particles coat the pads of his fingers. “You have stuff on your neck, Dean. Hot date?” Sam teased as he held out his fingers for inspection. Even under the soulless light of the motel room, they glistened.

Dean’s brow furrowed, his lips pursed in confusion and thought as he stared at the evidence coating Sam’s fingers as his own hand reached up to his neck and rested there for a moment.

Then he _blushed_. His eyes were wide with sudden epiphany and surprise and he was redder than the first time Sam had caught him with a girl (and never again for all the times after that).

“Dean?” Sam asked.

Dean’s face cleared as his head snapped up in order to meet Sam’s questioning gaze. He rubbed away the lingering layer of stuff on his neck roughly. “It’s nothing, Sam,” Dean said with determination.

Sam wasn’t convinced, but he nodded and pretended to let it go. Mostly because Dean sounded like he was trying to convince himself more than anyone else.

\----

It all coalesced into brilliant understanding after the heartbreaking and utterly demoralizing trip to the past.

Sam and Dean were both in a mood and as soon as Castiel could be moved without bringing attention and the authorities down on them, they piled into the Impala and made their way to Bobby’s.

They drove without breaks, though Dean made sure to pull over whenever Castiel regained consciousness for more than a moment. Dean coaxed him into drinking water, overruling the angel’s protests about not needing any with a serious look that reminded Sam, with a painful pang, of their father.

They made good time and arrived at Bobby’s a little before sunset. Bobby took one look at them, splashed them with some holy water, and made them jump over symbols before he shooed them off to get some sleep.

Sam didn’t think he’d be able to get to sleep. He had tossed and turned on his motel bed for hours and been relieved when Castiel was in a better state so they could finally get moving and put the past behind with each revolution of the Impala’s wheels. After all they’d been through over the past few years, Bobby’s place had become a haven for them and Sam barely felt the hard mattress underneath him before he was snoring deeply.

He awoke to the sound of arguing, Dean Winchester style. Sam knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep anymore so he made his way downstairs, trying to make sense of Dean’s muffled protests.

“You should have told me!” Was the first thing Sam heard clearly as he cleared the stairs.

Sam peeked into the living room and watching with sympathy as Dean paced in front of a supine angel and bawled him out for not “telling us the whole goddamned truth about what time travel would do to your angel ass instead of making it seem like it’d be no worse than a fucking paper cut!”

Castiel, despite his position and apparent need for rest, kept trying to wrestle himself into a sitting position, but Dean would push him back down firmly every single time. Judging by the expression on Castiel’s face, Dean was lucky he’d lost most of his powers and couldn’t smite him into a crisp.

Sam thought that Castiel might be inclined to be more forgiving of Dean’s heavy-handed mother hen tendencies if he knew that this was pretty much the only way Dean knew to express his worry. He bitched because he cared. In lieu of saving Castiel or joining Dean in giving the poor guy a lot of grief, Sam decided he needed coffee. Big brothers and angels could wait until after his the first serving of his daily requirement of caffeine.

“Is Dean done fussing?” Bobby asked in his usual grumpy manner as soon as Sam entered the kitchen.

Sam grinned. “Almost,” he answered as he zeroed in on the coffeepot. “Hey! Are those lemon poppy seed muffins? Awesome!” He happily attacked the morning pastry as he guzzled his coffee.

Bobby grunted—disbelief, annoyance, and a thousand other shades of ornery rolled into one compact little sound—and went back to his own cup of joe and the book in his lap.

Sam was on his second cup when Bobby shut the tome. “They’re both up and I don’t got the time or energy to grab the books I need and move for that angel’s delicate state. If he’s that out of it, he needs a bed, not my couch,” Bobby said as he started towards the living room.

Sam kept his mouth shut and followed after him. He didn’t say that the couch was the most comfortable place in the whole house. Bobby knew that, after all.

“Hey, you two bozos done with your touchy-feely moment? Some of us need to continue researching that pesky little apocalypse that’s going on.” Bobby didn’t spare the couch a look, simply rolled straight to a stack of books on the desk.

Sam, on the other hand couldn’t take his eyes away from Dean and Castiel. Dean had stood up quickly as soon as Bobby had started speaking, but for one moment Sam had seen where he’s been. Dean had been kneeling by Castiel. His body positioned over the reposing angel and his hand, if Sam’s eyes weren’t deceiving him (which they had done so very many times in the past year), had been lying atop Castiel’s. He’d been _holding_ **Castiel’s** _**hand**_.

And maybe Sam could have written it off. Bobby’s snarky words about ‘moments’, and Dean’s maybe-kinda-sorta hand-holding, but the last bit cinched it.

Dean’s entire face was shining in the morning light. Across his cheeks, his nose, his _lips_ , just about every inch of unclothed skin was covered in that same fine dusting that Sam had seen various times before.

And it all made perfect sense.

“Holy shit! It’s you!” Sam’s mouth was faster than his speech filter. The loud exclamation of disbelief had stopped all discussion in lieu of staring at Sam like he was an idiot. Well, Bobby and Dean were, and he couldn’t express how much he was sick of that particular expression being aimed his way, but Castiel was doing his usual ‘seven degree head-tilt to assess the human’s sanity/coherence’.

“Yes, Sam,” Dean started sarcastically. “It’s me and Cas and Bobby.”

Sam didn’t even say a word. He just pointed at his own face and then at Dean.

Dean looked blank for a moment before his hand reached up to touch his face and came away covered with the shimmering stuff. Dean rubbed his fingertips together and Sam noticed, with a certain degree of glee, that he was turning red again.

“Dammit! Cas!” Dean turned to Castiel and pointed accusingly at his face. “You said you wouldn’t do it anymore!”

This time, when Castiel moved to pull himself up Dean didn’t stop him. “My apologies, Dean. It—” Castiel paused with an expression that Sam could only call pained, though it had become easier to tell what Castiel was feeling the more that he lost his angelic powers. “It is difficult to keep them from falling the more that I lose my grace.”

“Them?” Sam asked. He was obviously not getting a complete picture. There was something going on between Dean and Castiel and it involved intimate touching and Sam really didn’t want to follow that line of thought because…yeah. Ew.

“My feathers,” Castiel answered succinctly.

Sam was sure his expression made him look like an idiot, but at that moment he didn’t care. “Feathers?!” he choked out between his awe and surprise.

The corners of Castiel’s lips were pulled down in displeasure; not quite a frown but almost. “It is the most concise way that your language will allow me to communicate the concept. My ‘wings’ as you say, are not like those of birds, we do not have feathers in any sense. We are beings of energy. Though I lose my grace with every passing moment it does not dissipate into nothing, it returns to the fabric of creation—”

“Energy cannot be created nor destroyed!” Sam interrupted with an energetic crow.

Dean glared at him fondly, his ‘my brother is a geek’ expression was attached firmly. Castiel was nodding somberly.

“Simplistic, but true.” Castiel reached out and touched Dean’s hand, coating his own fingers in the dust of his “feathers”.

Sam couldn’t ignore the gesture, but he tried.

“So, that’s angeldust?” Bobby spoke up. “Is it good for anything?”

Sam wasn’t surprised when Dean sent a fierce look Bobby’s way. “Bobby!” he chastised.

Bobby didn’t look repentant.

“It’s stardust,” Castiel said, drawing everyone’s attention to him.

“Seriously?” Sam asked eagerly.

Castiel nodded. “As you are made in my Father’s image from the dust of the earth, we were made from star stuff.”

Sam watched as Dean gave his stardusted hands a considering look before locking gazes with Castiel. He licked his lips deliberately and Castiel followed the motion avidly.

It answered any lingering doubts that Sam had about how involved his brother and the angel who’d pulled him from perdition were. And Sam _really_ didn’t want to think about how Dean got coated in Castiel’s dust or what other parts of his brother were similarly affected.

Their mooning and gradual swaying into each other’s space was _not_ helping.

“Hey! Save it for when neither of you is hours out of a coma, and you aren’t on my couch with an audience!” Bobby shouted, breaking the mood.

“Thank you,” Sam muttered fervently.

“Hmph. Get to researching or get out,” Bobby countered as he opened books and ignored whatever lovey-dovey feelings were still floating around.

Dean cleared his throat. “I’m, ah, gonna help Cas to bed. So he can get some rest.”

Neither Sam nor Bobby spared him a glance, too afraid to laugh or make an inappropriate comment that would start a longwinded, time wasting argument.

“How long have you known about them?” Sam asked as soon as his brother and Castiel were out of earshot.

Bobby gave him a piercing stare before shaking his head and muttering disparaging things that Sam ignored.

Moments later, there were many more noises involving his brother and an _angel of the freaking Lord_ that Sam desperately pretended not to hear.

Bobby sighed and turned on his radio.

\----

Bobby refused to answer the question on the grounds that he saw it before _any_ of them.

Idjits.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Notes/Prompt:** 1\. Castiel has the embarrassing experience of his wings molting. Could be realistic like pigeon molting, or perhaps something a bit more visceral and sparkly if his wings aren't just invisible bird wings. Dean makes fun of him. 3. Sam and/or Bobby find out that Castiel and Dean are more than just buddies. Well, a little bit of the first and a lot more of the second.


End file.
